I get this so much, as a southeast Asian woman (but currently resides in UK) most of my family food needs elaborate preparation. For me block cooking works so I just cook 3-4 mains in bulk once a week and I am thankful that my family (with twins and a baby) is not fussy of eating the same thing for a week(lol). But in the case of boredom we also do takeout or just buy ready to eat things at the supermarket. I talked more details about this food prep in https://phdblinks.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/phd-vs-home-chores-a-question-no-man-will-ever-ask/ just for information.

@ARC – I am getting a warm and fuzzy feeling right now about this. This blog discussion thread has proved useful!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this recipe!!!! I just tried it this week and everyone raved about it (which rarely happened). And in fact, every member of the family was happy to eat it as leftovers too. Totally adding it to the rotation. <3

Going back to the work will likely help me reduce my kitchen duty because 1) it gives me a mental pass to lower my expectations of what constitutes a “good dinner”, ie embracing sandwich night or hot dogs, 2) my husband is likely to step up and cook more (he loves to cook but gets home after 7). 3) I’ll have less time to agonize about it (I often procrastinate about dinnner from 5-7pm) and 4) it’s easier to justify and pay for outsourcing (likely hiring a nanny who can prep ingredients)

Ah yes! That would be a major time sink. The devil is in the details.

It’s absolutely more expensive. In fact, it’s our biggest expense. That said:
– our nanny would only want to work full time, and we love her
– we’re having another baby, so we would need someone full time anyway
– my 3.5 year old’s “school” has 8373 days off per year it seems and doesn’t sync up with my kindergartener’s calendar
– as Laura said, neither of us have the kind of jobs where we can just not go into work if a child unexpectedly gets sick. We need that layer of backup.
– we figured out that everyone can win (including our nanny!) by figuring out this hybrid situation. our lives are easier, she has plenty to do (she still get some downtime 🙂 ), etc.

Hmm – I’ve always given young children (other than the 12m and younger set) the same stuff as bigger, just cut up more. Actually my kids have been far more picky as they’ve gotten older – Annabel at 15 months would have eaten literally anything!
.
I absolutely can see how many people value the family dinner. Sometimes I wish that could work for us, but it doesn’t. I think that in general, the ‘normal’ thing to do is to have fam dinner so our approach is one different (but alternate) one.

Thanks H.

I do think that yes, there are going to be differences in how Laura and I manage things. That said, I subscribe to many podcasts of SAHMs and still enjoy getting ideas from them, even if my situation is not the same. Sometimes it’s just interesting (to me) to hear how others do things — almost in a voyeuristic way. This episode wasn’t meant to be us talking as experts, but just as we handle things from day to day. I’m absolutely okay if that’s not for everyone, but I found it a voice previously missing from the podcast-sphere.

Thanks H.

I do think that yes, there are going to be differences in how Laura and I manage things. That said, I subscribe to many podcasts of SAHMs and still enjoy getting ideas from them, even if my situation is not the same. Sometimes it’s just interesting (to me) to hear how others do things — almost in a voyeuristic way. This episode wasn’t meant to be us talking as experts, but just as we handle things from day to day. I’m absolutely okay if that’s not for everyone, but I found it a voice previously missing from the podcast-sphere.